Forum:Japanese vs. English terms
Right, so we've decided for sure that we're using japanese names for Medabots and characters, but whether we're using japanese terms is still up in the air... Here's a rundown of what we would be changing: English → Japanese *Medabot → Medarot *Medafighter → Medarotter *Robattle → Robottle *Medaparts → Parts (we're already using this) *Medawatch → Medarotch *Kilobots → Death Medarots Basically, the options are A) to use japanese for both names and terminology, which would let us be totally consistant, or B) keep using japanese names and english terms in the hopes of not weirding out fans of the english anime even more. Personally I prefer A, since it seems sloppy to follow the dub for half of everything, and I think it also fits more with our focus on the japan-only parts of the series. (Let's face it, even if we are covering the entire franchise on the wiki, it's mainly a series of gameboy games...) It seems a bit past the fact to worry about what anime-only fans are going to think when we're already using japanese names and talking about japan-only stuff. >_>; That's just what I think. ~ Kimbles 17:44, October 12, 2009 (UTC) :However we would run on the problem of renaming the wiki, as we would now be the "medarot wiki".--SoujiroElric 18:18, October 12, 2009 (UTC) ::I think that sounds a bit better to be honest, plus we could leave the URL for the site "medabots.wikia.com", so it'll still show up in search engines. XD ~ Kimbles 18:30, October 12, 2009 (UTC) I think, we should make a page with a table of terms, Japanese terms in a side, and English ones in the other side, because, only few Medarot games are in English, and the rest are in Japanese, we have to state to the fans that don't know this, to learn them, plus We can't write the japanese terms with the english ones in parenthesis everytime right?Cat42 03:21, October 20, 2009 (UTC) :Agreed, we're planning to make a page like that once this discussion is over. *nod* And we could probably mention why we use japanese terms the main page of the wiki, and make an FAQ or "manual of style" once we have everything figured out... I wouldn't use parenthesis, because seeing Medarot (Medabot) and Medarotter (Medafighter) every time would probably wear thin on the reader after a while. *shrug* Apart from those issues, would you say you're fine with the idea of using japanese terms? ~ Kimbles 12:34, October 20, 2009 (UTC) ::Yes, I'm fine with the Japanese terms--Cat42 00:48, October 21, 2009 (UTC) :There's nothing inherently wrong with the English terminology. If we're talking about alienating people who only know the English terminologies, I actually think making that complete a switch of even these most basic terms would throw them off completely. Let's try to remember for once that this Wiki is written in English, not Japanese, and it's going to be people who can primarily understand English (and therefore would have primarily seen the English terms) who are going to read it (as the preferences of those who participated in the poll reflect, despite the ultimate decision to use fan-translated Japanese). The original intention (as gathered from the name and address of the site) was obviously to utilize the English terminology and I see no reason not to respect that decision, even though the original founder of this wiki is long missing. :In short, I see no reason to discard the use of the official English terminology in the favour of literally-translated Japanese which would confuse fans who do not have prior knowledge of the interchangeability of the listed terms. :Let's not forget here that the original Japanese terms were written in kana and what you see listed is a very literal translation of the phonetics (possibly with some liberties taken). '--Select.2677' ::Hmm... The polls we did for names showed there were as many people who wanted japanese names as english names. When we repeated the poll with just those options, it was a complete tie... We decided to go with japanese names because it makes things a whole lot easier to organize. ::For the translations, "Medarot", "Medarotter", "Robottle" and "Medarotch" do appear written in english in various japanese media, so they really are the official translations. >_>; Guess I should have mentioned that... ::Either way, really, thanks for the input. XD We won't be changing anything until we get a clear idea of what you guys think, so we will take it into consideration. ~ Kimbles 12:27, October 22, 2009 (UTC) ::Select.2677, To respond to a few of your points: ::1) Yes, the Wiki is written in English and used by English-speakers. However, your assertion that anyone who speaks English will be familiar with the English terms first is a pretty big assumption on your part. The English dub was never widely popular around here, and lots of people never watched it, including myself. My entire familiarity with the series comes from the games, which are almost entirely Japanese. If, as you imply, English-speakers are not interested in things that are primarily Japanese, why would there exist Wikis for series that have never been officially translated? The existance of those and folks like myself sort of invalidate that argument. :/ ::2) As Kimbles stated, most of the Japanese terms are official English names. They just originate from the Japanese media. You seem to show some distaste for "fan-translations", but look at it this way: Both official translations and fan-translations are done by people with a comprehensive knowledge of Japanese. There's not necessarily any difference in ability between people who do either. The only real difference is that the people who do official translations are doing it because they're getting payed, and people doing fan-translations do it because they care. As a result, fan-translations can be better-quality than official ones. This isn't always (or even usually) the case, but especially for the names of the Medarots I'd say this is one series where it certainly is. ::So, I'd like to post the flip side to your argument: English-speakers who are only familiar with the series through the dub are only a part of the Medarot community. I see no reason why we should sacrifice accuracy and consistancy to cater to a fraction of the fans. Dekafu 23:38, October 22, 2009 (UTC) :::For Dekafu, just to clarify, I am not attacking fan-translations in anyway. That was in reference to the decision to use romanized-Japanese in Medabot names/parts. As far as I know, not every name has an official romanization and I thus assumed that the romanizations would be fan-translated, but I could be wrong. On the other hand, the Japanese terms listed up at the top of the page might be official, but as I said, are still literal translations. As you mentioned yourself, official translations are not necessarily good translations - and that applies to both the Japanese AND American translators. :::Also, I never said people who speak English are not interested in Japanese things, nor did I intend to imply it in anyway. I'm sorry if you got that impression, but that simply wasn't the case. All I was trying to say was that there were enough people who preferred to use the English translations (where available) on the wiki in the poll to count. As Kimbles said himself, the ratio was about 50-50. Fifty percent is hardly a mere fraction of the fans. In fact, in my own opinion, I wouldn't disregard even simply one percent, because that's still more than zero - but I'm not an admin, and not everyone shares that opinion. :::I've got nothing against accuracy, but in this case, I don't believe accuracy is really the focus. Both sets of terms seem equally accurate in this argument, and you can still have different sets of consistencies for different subjects. The way I (though not necessarily you) see it, the only way to achieve actual TOTAL consistency with Japanese would be to type everything in Japanese with Japanese kana, which would defeat the purpose of having a database of information in English. :::So it's more of a preference issue here. I didn't come to this forum to try and change the opinions of other people, or to have other people try and force theirs' onto me. I came here to leave a record of my own preference of terminology with my reasons for the administrators to take into account when they come to a final decision, which I am assuming is going to be based on the general preference of the fanbase. And if it is not, then I don't want to spend any more time on the issue then I have. :::Like it or not, my choice is option B). Reasons are given in my first post. Don't like B)? Post your own preference (with reasons like me if you feel like) and move on. This is the last post I'm making for this topic. --'Select.2677', over and out. :My vote is for using the Japanese names across the board. However, I personally don't feel that putting up the English terms where they differ to be that much of a hassle. We are talking about only three games and the anime, after all. Apart from the very general terms at the top of this list, the names of Medarots or individual parts or characters should be clarified, but in a way that's as unobtrusive as possible. For instance, using parentheses if a term appears once in an article. Or, for the synopsis of an episode of the anime say, a "key" or list of sorts at the top of the page might be in order. This could be especially useful for fans of the dubbed anime; a great many people find Japanese proper names difficult to remember. Not having to go to a character's page every time they forgot which Screw henchman Kagamiyama was would be nice for them. Since many such pages are still in development, adding these changes or putting a new template in place shouldn't be too difficult. Whatever we decide, we should stick to one method over another. The Yu-Gi-Oh wikia is terrible about this; Japanese and English character names are used almost interchangeably. For a casual fan, it's terribly confusing. :Lastly, I think it might be a good idea to put up multiple translations for names that don't have an official Romanization. The sunfish medarot from Navi is listed as "All-Head", for example, where I'd been calling it "Oarhead" all this time! Both Romanizations are phonetically correct, and both seem to make sense. Giving the reader some options could be good. Although this is more of an afterthought and not something that seems absolutely necessary, I'll admit. DokujaOh 06:11, October 23, 2009 (UTC) ::Those are some pretty good points. XD For character and Medarot names, listing the english name the first time it appears might actually work, but we'd need to make sure it isn't awkward... Alternatively, there might be some way to add a link to the japanese/english comparison page at the top of each article, since I recall seeing things like that on other wikis. *nod* The main issue right now is whether we should call the robots and series itself "Medabots" or "Medarot", since it appears in a lot of article and category names, and enough times in articles that it would be tedious to clarify it each time. >_< ::The idea of multiple translations is also pretty good, but adding them on lists would make it a bit less readable, I think. It has been bugging me though, because we don't always have the names set in stone when we fill in the lists... I think adding a section at the bottom of the list for the names we don't know the origin for would work, and I was planning to mention any alternate possible names on the Medarot's pages anyway. *nod* Not to mention you can always suggest different names on the list's talk page, since we do sometimes overlook stuff. XD Thanks for the input. ~ Kimbles 13:40, October 23, 2009 (UTC) :::This post is also an answer to Select.2677. Other names can be discussed in the talk pages, like Kimbles said, and if they have enough basis they can even replace the content on said page. Say, both "All-Head" and "Oarhead" are good, and a discussion can be made around the name. This is because of romanization. As Select said, real consistency might be given by japanese kana, but then we ARE using them for names and terminology. Aside that, most terms were translated to english in the games and even the anime, like "medarotter" and "medarot". However I would like you, Select, to check the Medarot 3 list and see the english names and their japanese counterparts. God, the english names are nothing but horrible. The same goes for most medabots aswell. :::Anyways to the point. Apparently DokujaOh, Cat42 and Dekafu say A), while Select says B). That's 3 to 1 for now. Personally I don't have a big issue with neither, because each option has its pros and cons.--SoujiroElric 16:13, October 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- After a long time without new posts, we can already conclude something: WE ARE USING JAPANESE TERMINOLOGY FOR EVERYTHING RELATED TO MEDAROT. The decision is done and the changes shall be applied in no time. The discussion is over. Thanks for showing us your points of view.--SoujiroElric 02:52, November 19, 2009 (UTC) Category:Forums